NOVEL FROG Chapter Three Hundred Fifty
The morning of the seventh match was the same as the ones before it. Five wishes for Rime, five elixirs for Jessie, and she officially reached two thirds of her elixir limit even as her Vitality broke past three hundred. On top of that she got another ten points of Might from her bond, bringing that to eighty seven on top of the insane three hundred and three Vitality. Specializing definitely had upsides, since her entire skillset was based on Vitality, compounding that stat allowed her to see INSANE returns on her stats.
I could see now why people with my power usually had bodyguards, funneling all of someone's stats to one point could create absurd levels of power in compatible abilities. Like Cark having almost all his points in Might. Sure, he already had most of them as a fire user, but that was MOST. Having almost a hundred percent stat allocation reinforcing your main skillset was incredibly broken, and not something that happened naturally even to people with heavily skewed powers.
The further behind a stat was the easier it got to raise, and the other stats started to climb quicker when you got too focused on one, unless of course you cheated and did it like I did with wishes. Given how strong her healing already was, not to mention the enhancement abilities of her energy infusion on her animals, I was terrified to see what that power would be able to do at next rank.
I knew that focusing your stats was one way to change your ability without synergizing so expected at least some kind of change when she hit F-rank. Once again we found ourselves back at the same arena. Rime was waiting in the stands with Zeke, who would as usual be gone by the time we came out. By this point everyone had other things to do, and no one but them had time to go to every single one of our matches, not that we would ask them to.
Stepping out onto the sand, I was prepared for anything. From what I'd seen, we usually got one of two situations when facing new groups, either a widely varied set of enemies, or four people in a uniform or some sort of identical concealment attire.
This particular group of opponents were the latter. "So." I said musingly. "Exactly how many factions use the whole shapeless dark robes ensemble? This is what? The third we've seen? You would be figure it would be counterproductive given how big a role attention plays in cultivation. Like, doesn't the uniform defeat the purpose?"
Callie shook her head as we made our way into the pit towards the other team. "No. I asked The Nothing about that. He said they're usually limited within a region, and they make enough of an impact as a group to justify the choice. Being members of that faction gives each person a similar amount of prestige, sort of like Raleigh's Raiders back in the scavenger hunt."
One of the figures nodded slowly. "She is correct." They said with a voice like a creaking door in a haunted house.
"Yes." Said another in a voice like claws scraping over a dead tree. "Most correct. The Hate Demon Convergence is indeed such an organization."
I sighed. Wonderful, they were total creeps. Callie remained calm as ever as she said. "That's a...nice name. Any chance you could give us some sort of individual moniker we could use to identify each of you? I respect the whole...group mentality, thing you have going on, but it would be nice to put a name to the lack of face."
Because the hoods were completely dark, full of nothing but bottomless shadow...of course. One of them nodded. "We are Skell. We are also Veck, Stang, and Ruk." It announced this with a voice like metal screaming as it shattered, clearly a different one than the other two.
"Right." Callie said flatly. "Very helpful, thank you." Apparently the 'Hate Demon Convergence' didn't teach sarcasm, because the figure nodded again despite her clear implication that announcing the names of the...convergers, while using the collective we made the introductions functionally pointless. "You haven't attacked yet, are you waiting for us to start things off?"
The four of them shook their heads in unison. "It begins." Said the fourth one in a voice like cold water hitting hot stone. I was a bit confused as to what that meant...until I looked up.
Four circles of red symbols, all slightly different but close enough to be recognizable as a similar or identical Skill or ability, floated above us in a square. Red light connected the four circles, and through that square of darkness I could see a giant red hand manifesting.
"Fuck." Spat Abel as he saw it too, and lashed out with punch at the fist, a massive manifestation of his hand slamming into the demonic appendage.
The red hand clenched into its own fist, meeting the blow with a similar punch, and the explosion dispersed the manifestation, causing Abel to stumble back with a growl of pain. I stepped over and put a hand on his shoulder, triggering a heal burst, and he groaned in thanks.
As we watched, another hand came down through the square, the two of them latching onto either side of the square and beginning to tear the space wider with brute force. Through the hole I could see a massive red face with glaring yellow eyes and a huge mouth packed with razor sharp teeth. Rams horns curled back from a brutal looking face as the monster grinned down at us.
"What the actual fuck is THAT?" I yelped in terror. Whatever the demon was, it was F-rank, which shouldn't be possible here.
Abel groaned as he flexed his fist. "THAT." He said distastefully. "Is a cooperative invocation. looks like they're summoners. Most invocations have a primary caster, they modify the Skill and offload the power and soul requirements onto others. Cooperatives are what happen when multiple people use an invocation when they all have the same Skill or ability."
The monster's foot smashed down on the sand as it finally crawled free, a pair of giant red wings spreading out behind it as it threw back its head and roared in triumph.
Only to have it's roar cut off by another massive fist as Abel slammed a huge punch into its jaw. The beast reeled back as my mentor shook out his hand. "Ok, this is going to be rough." Despite the grim words, his face was plastered with a massive grin as he stripped off his coat and started to limber up. "Mel, an F-rank enemy is going to be a mess, especially one that size. Mind if I borrow a bit of your power?"
Mel shook her head. "Of course not, but be careful. You know the bond has limits at our rank."
He just waved her off, then closed his eyes. The summoners all seemed pretty much motionless but they were behind the damn demon so no way we were getting to them fast. Calli still nodded for me to circle around and we started moving slowly, letting Abel and Mel keep the monsters attention.
I'd never seen them use their bond for anything like Callie and I did. Abel was the main attacker and had never needed to tap into her powers. As I stared in awe, a massive avatar of Abel's fists manifested above us, condensed from golden fire. I'd seen Mel use that ability before, taking advantage of the physical aspects of Might to enhance her body with her condensed flames, but seeing it on this scale was...terrifying.
More than just the size, the sheer presence of those fists was staggering. There was a shift in the air and the space began to warp around the hands as Abel moved them through the air, warping the space to leave behind afterimages until there were six distinct manifestations in the air. The left fist flashed forward, the other two images condensing on it, then the right followed, each blow coming down with triple the force.
The demon roared, hurling its own fists out in a flurry of punches, but unlike last time Abel didn't budge. His blows met the punches from the demon head on and the beast reared back in pain, but the damage to the hands healed almost as soon as it happened. Summons were a bitch to take out if you couldn't one shot them, since the summoners could repair them.
I had no doubt Abel would get the thing eventually, and seeing him get serious and actively work with Mel for the first time in the tournament I was blown away, but this was a team match, which meant he didn't HAVE to do that. Callie and I had circled around to within range for me to use Double Trouble, but I held back, kneeling down to condense Stone Limbs on both my hands, as well as poison fire, just in case.
Waiting for the perfect timing, I stood stock still, staring at the nearby figures as the giant demonic summon and the massive flaming fists boxed it out above us. Finally, there was a shift near their feet. Callie had flooded the ground with shadows, triggering a Sucking Mud through the bond. The distracted figures had no chance as they all got snagged by the shadow tendrils of the Dark Swamp combination technique, slowly being dragged into the mud.
Sadly that didn't end the summon, so I activated Double Trouble. A Cloud Step to prevent me from sinking allowed me to lash out with a pair of Mercy Kill boosted punches and then spin off to slam both hands down on the third one's head and dropping an elbow on the last, all imbued with a triple strength tranq blow, using four of my stockpiles.
The figures all slumped, obviously unprepared for a random teleport into their midst. The unconscious bodies were dragged into the muck, but Callie cancelled the skill leaving them all buried in the now solid sand. I felt a shudder in the air as the massive summon dispersed, showing the major weakness of summoners in general better than any other example I'd ever seen.
Flaming hands faded from the air as Abel released the fire empowerment Skill. I checked on the hooded figures, and they were all breathing, unharmed mostly since the poison fire had faded when I released the skill, since they were buried underground. Seeing they didn't need any healing I turned to check on Abel, who was nursing a pair of seriously damaged hands.
I put a hand on his shoulder and used a heal burst, hearing my mentor's sigh of relief as I did. "Ok. Ow. Haven't pushed that far in a while. Bit bummed you ended it so early though, that was the best fight I've had in ages." He shrugged. "Oh well, I guess I'll have to hope someone better comes along in the solo matches."
Mel snorted. "You would have been hard pressed to beat that thing without me. If someone better than that comes along when you're alone you're screwed. Though I guess the damn thing WAS F-rank, so who knows." She glanced at the unconscious figures. "We going to do the meeting thing?"
Callie shook her head. "No. They give me the creeps, I don't really want them hanging around the pavilion. I'm sure we can find some other people who can do cooperative invocations. That summon was scary but Rime would crush it for instance, they just aren't worth the investment."
I agreed, though more for the first reason than anything else. I found them all pretty unsettling. With a sigh, I turned to make my way out of the arena with the others following behind. Next match was the last one in the team segment, and assuming we got through that we might be forced to fight each other. I was going to have to do some work on my DS Mastery to prepare for fighting alone. I had a feeling things would only get harder from here.